Thursday, 9 April 2009

Screenwriter and playwright Mark Adam Kaplan has turned his pen to the novel – and makes his print debut with a tale of rocky romance that’s anything but the story book kind.

A Thousand Beauties stars unlikely leading man Rupert Ruskin – overweight, underemployed, rich and jaded – who clings to an obsessive belief that if he can witness a thousand beautiful sights in a single day, his sordid existence will turn to bliss ... just as family legend promises.

But his quest for Beauty is stalled when beloved and eccentric ex-wife, Elaine, bursts back into his life with news of her cancer. Ruskin now has to make room for a more immediate and secret plan ... but should it be for a wedding or a funeral?

Kaplan navigates with poetic urgency the peaks and troughs of co-dependency and the mutual punishment of an affair grounded in both love and loathing.

Born in Staten Island, New York, the California-based writer, formerly Assistant Editor with Penguin Books, earned his B.A. in English from the University of Michigan and has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute’s Centre for Film and Television Studies.

He has written, produced and directed plays Off-Broadway and in Los Angeles and Seattle, including Marriage in Venice, The Hellfire Cafe, Wild Things, Denial of the Fittest, Landfill and The Meateater’s Comedy.

His screen credits include award-winning A Time to Remember, Echoes of the East: Tibet and Roadhouse Rock ’96. He also worked on the script of the Erika Eleniak movie, Second to Die.

In the pipeline are several new scripts and Kaplan is currently polishing his second novel, Dangerous, set in East LA.

He lives with his wife and two daughters in Los Angeles where Kaplan also teaches.

Kaplan said: “Although I’d done well with movies and documentaries in Asia, I never quite cracked Hollywood when I came home. Now I teach eighth grade in a low-performing public school and my writing is done by midnight oil, after the girls are tucked up in bed. Often I’m still at my desk in the early morning hours.”

A Thousand Beauties was written in a garage in Pasadena after the death of his paternal grandmother.

“Both she and her brother died of pancreatic cancer, and as I researched the disease, I grew appalled at my ignorance of how pervasive and common this form of cancer is. I felt I had to weave it into a work of fiction.

“But – although the cancer is a key element in my story – it doesn’t haunt it. The story is focused on the obsessive love of a desperate romantic, Rupert Ruskin, who just can’t seem, no matter how hard he tries, to get it right.

“As the two main characters – Rupert and Elaine – struggle against a tragic inevitability, they also struggle against one another. It’s a roller-coaster of the co-dependency and mutual punishment that underscores many hopeful but dysfunctional relationships.

“At times they’re more appalled by their love of each other than their hatred of the disease.

“But against failure and resignation stands hope. Ruskin’s family has a history of dementia. They also have a family legend that promises enlightenment to anyone who can count a thousand beautiful things in a single day. This is where Rupert’s hopes for Elaine lie. He wants her to witness a thousand beauties before she dies. His obsession for her happiness is desperate – and stifling.”

A Thousand Beauties is published internationally by BeWrite Books, UK. It is available in paperback and eBook formats.

BeWrite Books Recommends

Book Trailers

Subscribe to the blog

About

Contact Us

General enquiries to contact@bewrite.netEditorial enquiries to ntmarr@bewrite.netEditorial enquiries to hughtmccracken@bewrite.netPoetry enquiries to bewritepoetry@aol.comTechnical enquiries to tonyszmuk@bewrite.net